Advertisement
Published: August 30th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Ballyshannon
Statue of Rory Gallagher They say a week in politics is a long time. It stands to reason then that 2 weeks in travel can be an eternity. In early August it was all hustle and bustle and the thrill of London 2012. 80,000 in a packed athletics stadium – almost half the population of County Donegal . Noise. Excitement. Donegal was therefore the peace and quiet and relaxation. Empty beaches. Fresh air. No more of the trinket world in Knock. Ever been to Rossnowlagh …………….. Ireland ’s answer to Broome? There are no camels on the beach, but tucked away behind the Sandhouse Hotel on the 3 kilometres of sand are more cars than the average side road in these parts will see in a year. It is quoted as one of Europe ’s best Blue Flag surfing beaches and maybe it is. On a fine and sunny Sunday afternoon, there were lines of vehicles stretched out in either direction from the main ramp access. The deserted beach theory blown, we headed north.
The first port of call in Donegal had been Ballyshannon – rumoured to be the oldest town in Ireland . The current edition of the Donegal tourism magazine contains a
Killybegs
Peat for sale foreward from their perceived greatest musical export…….none other than Daniel O’Donnell. Ballyshannon would not agree! Daniel talks of the County being a great secret, but Ballyshannon’s secret is now out. At the junction of Main Street and Castle Street stands a bronze statue to Ballyshannon’s most famous son, guitarist Rory Gallagher. The ipod generation are now scratching their heads. We were the only ones studying the life size bronze of the man regarded as one of the great rock and blues guitarists. A man who shifted over 30 million albums, before his untimely end in 1995. He was born in the town in 1947, before moving to Derry and growing up in Cork . His father worked for the Irish Electricity Board on the big dam above the town, before being relocated elsewhere. His words from his perhaps greatest commercial single success are kind of fitting in the context of a travelblog
"I've travelled the world
Cos I couldn't be told"
We bought some lunch at the deli counter in Mace. We had yet to encounter the fight for custom between Aldi and Lidl. The Edward Slevin Department store looked tempting………….. big savings and an exchange rate
of 1.25 Euros for your £1 .... but cabin baggage on a low cost airline does not allow for unplanned purchases.
Seaside tranquillity was restored with the consumption of lunch at Creevy Harbour . Bundoran was the commercial face of the Donegal seaside. Pay and display parking!! We’d had enough of that in Ballyshannon, although to be fair it was easily avoided. We spotted our first “ghost” estate on the way into town. It was a new phenomenon for us. The last trip to Galway was during the rise of the Celtic tiger, where property was name your price. It clearly couldn’t last for ever. The result now appears to be serious negative equity …….. not as we knew it in the UK where there was maybe a 10% dip, but properties being worth perhaps 50% of their original valuations or in some cases less. The “ghost” estates are everywhere, even in the smallest places – developments which appear to have houses 80 or 90% complete and thenjust abandoned by the builders. The interesting aspect was that despite minimal security, there appeared to be no visible attempts to illegally occupy the properties or remove any of the building materials.
We departed for the Fort of the Foreigners.
Donegal Town is the gateway to the County, but is no more than a small market town. The curse of pay and display has also arrived here, but a small investigation reveals a number of free streets nearby. The town was originally developed around the safe harbour and the castle, which had boat access. The market square is referred to as the Diamond and is flanked by the usual array of tourist tat shops, as well as Magees – purveyors of Donegal Tweed and the Central Hotel – rooms with panoramic views overlooking Donegal Bay . Magees original factory lies across the river behind the Castle. The Pyramid is the centre of the coach universe, unloading their cargos of wealthy Americans and Europeans to find the town and it’s shop contents pretty and quaint. It was raining. We didn't particularly find it pretty or quaint. The Magee tweed looks nice, but there are only so many Guinness t-shirts you can absorb. We wandered down to the ruins of Dongal Abbey near the quayside. The central car park was being set up for the Donegal Food Festival or something similar, meaning the
coaches were squeezed up against and obscuring the statue on the quay. The castle is of interest for your 4 Euros, but it's probably best to wait 10 minutes if a group party has just been deposited there - it's not very big inside. The living accommodation has been nicely restored. The rain ceased as we made our way west along the coast towards Killybegs.
Killybegs is Ireland's premier fishing port. The carpet industry is long since closed down. A 12 metre low tide water level should ensure that there are some serious ocean going trawlers in the harbour to view and there also appeared to be 2 small cruise ships at the far end of the port. You can see that fishing is the lifeblood of the town with the number of fish processing plants stretching out around the port area. The Tara Hotel dominates the town centre, but we dined al fresco from the fish van on the quay. We were expecting fish'n'chips ala Whitby style, so it was surprise that the fayre straight from the boats came in the form of cod goujons.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.12s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0879s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb